Wednesday, January 24, 2018

No mention of 63 million 2016 voters in WSJ article about speedy end to "shutdown." We voted in 2016 for regime change to end decades of crony "bipartisan" deals especially about the border. Ignored yet again, voters are given a "bipartisan" deal engineered by far left NY Times darling Republican Senator Collins who, what a doll, convinced McConnell to promise a "sweeping range of immigration policies" to avert another shutdown. (What? We already have immigration policies)-Wall St. Journal...(The Wall isn't negotiable. It should never again be mentioned as part of any deal)

“Democrats went into battle and then buckled and weren’t ready for it,” said
Adam Green,
a co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “There should have been an outside game that was planned.”

How Senate Democrats got to the point of charging forward on Friday night
and then pulling back on Monday morning is the story of a Republican
party more organized than the Democratic insurgents and centrists in
both parties who challenged the partisan rhetoricof both Mr. McConnell
and Senate Minority Leader
Chuck Schumer
(D., N.Y.)., forging a path forward during meetings where one
senator nearly broke a glass elephant with a “talking stick.”"

[Ed. note: "Partisan rhetoric?" Please, WSJ. There are no "partisans" in the US Senate. Occasional"partisan rhetoric" is a phony charade by both "sides" and sold by media such as WSJ to fool the rubes. The entire US political class has the same agenda: open borders, extreme globalism, endless foreign wars paid for by US taxpayers, and massive free trade deals.]

This article is based on dozens of interviews with lawmakers, administration officials and advocates.

That the Senate would become the focal point of the shutdown
surprised some of Washington’s top officials, who saw greater risks in
the House.

On Thursday, Mr. Trump dialed into a meeting of the
Freedom Caucus, a group of staunch House conservatives,"...

[Ed. note: What exactly qualifies these members in 2018 to be described as "staunch House conservatives?"]

(continuing): "and warned:
“We’re one party and we control the House, Senate and White House,” said
one senior administration official with knowledge of the call.
“Shutting down the government is not productive to us gaining leverage
on the issues we care about.”

Office of Management and Budget
Director
Mick Mulvaney
said the call “sent a very clear message” and added: “That was
the best work he did.” The House passed a short-term extension of
government funding later that day.

Some Senate Democrats, many of whom expected the spending bill would
fizzle in the House, weren’t fully prepared for the shutdown fight now
upon them.

On
the other side of town, Mr. Trump was smarting over Mr. Schumer’s
characterization of a lunch in which they had discussed immigration
issues, including funding for a border wall."...

[Ed. note: The Wall is non-negotiable. Why is Trump discussing it with Schumer? The Wall should've been half built already.]

(continuing): "“It took the
president by surprise that Schumer would mischaracterize the meeting
that badly that quickly,” Mr. Mulvaney said. “The president decided:
That’s the end of those negotiations...That’s when we first realized
that we might go to a shutdown.” Mr. Schumer has stood by his
recollections of the meeting.

Later that evening, Mr. Mulvaney
spoke with the president, who said for the first time he thought a
shutdown was likely. “OK, what’s going to happen?” Mr. Trump asked. He
told him: “Make sure we keep open as much of the government as we can.”

In
the wee hours of Saturday morning, all but five Democrats lined up
behind their leader and blocked the spending bill on a procedural
measure that needed 60 votes. The government officially shutdown at
12:01 a.m.—before the final vote, 50-49, was gaveled to a close.

Over
the weekend, Mr. Trump largely receded from public view, save for a few
tweets touting the nation’s economic gains and criticizing Democrats
for their role in the dispute that the White House said was “holding our
troops hostage and our border agents hostage.” His re-election campaign
ran ads that claimed Democrats were “complicit” in murder perpetrated
by immigrants in the country illegally. [Elected Republicans want open borders as much or more than Democrats do, so are also "complicit."]

Democrats, meanwhile, found their offices inundated with phone calls.

“I called and left messages at their offices,” Gregg James, the vice
president of a Minnesota branch of the American Federation of Government
Employees, said of his efforts to reach Sens.
Amy Klobuchar
(D., Minn.) and Tina Smith (D., Minn.) He said he understood
their concerns about immigration but that “we never feel shutting down
the government is the right thing to do.”

Senate Republicans and
Democrats alike were also growing frustrated with their leadership. A
group of nearly two dozen members began meeting in the offices of
Sen. Susan Collins
(R., Maine) to hash out a solution."...

[Ed. note: That would be the offices of far left "NY Times Republican," Senator Susan Collins.]

[Ed. note:A so-called Republican Senator says "we don't have to deal with" the US president--duly elected by 63 million Americans, "we can make our own decisions." This is why Trump was elected. Voters don't exist to "bipartisan Republican" Lamar Alexander.]

(continuing):"The Collins-led sessions began to
grow. At one meeting, the senators used a Native American “talking
stick” as a way of designating which member would speak at any given
moment.

A gift to Ms. Collins from Sen Heidi Heitkamp (D., N.D.),
its use wasn’t without drama, according to people familiar with the
matter. Mr. Alexander at one point nearly broke a glass elephant with
the talking stick during a dispute with
Sen. Mark Warner
(D., Va.) The senators eventually switched to using a basketball,
tossing it to the next person due to speak. And Mr. Alexander
apologized to Mr. Warner.

On Monday morning, the bipartisan group
gathered with muffins, bagels and Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. “We had so
many people in the office that we were running out of chairs,” Ms.
Collins said."...

[Ed. note: "The bipartisan group" with muffins makes a deal for "sweeping immigration policy changes"? We didn't have an historic regime change election in 2016 to get yet another dreamy "bipartisan" crony deal on open borders. This massive charade against the United States and the security of its citizens must end.]

(continuing): "One issue that helped bond the group was the frustration vented toward their own leaders, Mr. McConnell and Mr. Schumer.

“I
don’t believe that either leader on either side should have the powers
that they have,”
Sen. Joe Manchin
(D., W.Va.), said Monday, complaining that it was too easy for
leaders to force their conferences to block deals. “We weren’t going to
be beaten into submission.”

Midday Monday, 28 Democrats
who had initially voted to block government funding changed their
positions and cleared the way for passage of the spending bill."

....................

Comment: We elected historic change via the ballot box in 2016. Establishments of both parties were rejected yet the political class acts like it's business as usual. If we can't get rid of you via the ballot box, how we can be rid of you? If you have no answer, then obviously elections must be cancelled.